They were perceived as candidates for large groups seeking to reinforce their global presence.The showbiz group is seen as ideal for Seagram, the giant Canadian drinks group that seems to have surrendered its thirst for wine and spirit growth to accommodate its media aspirations.The shares, despite a downbeat review from Salomon Brothers, the US investment house, spun 68p higher to 1,289.5p.The security group’s highly rated analysts, Ivor Jones, Richard Dale and David Forster, regard the shares as no more than a hold, suggesting a price between 1,250p and 1,300p on trading considerations. Guinness led the ferment with an 86p gain to 602.5p, best for five years; GrandMet soared to an all- time high of 591p.EMI, Pearson and Cadbury Schweppes were the Footsie constituents singled out for speculative attention. A rush of talent-spotting and another pulsating display in New York display sent Footsie stretching to another high, up 38.7 points to 4,669.6.
GrandMet and Guinness were in unabashed celebratory mood, helped by the proposed 60p-a-share cash distribution. Though British Bio has much to prove, a positive launch for Zacutex should be just the tonic it needs.. With the mammoth Grand Metropolitan/Guinness drinks alliance reasserting the magical appeal of corporate activity, the stock market spent a happy session striving to find the next blue chip player in the takeover game. More importantly, approval of Zacutex will allow the group to break in its freshly installed and untried sales and marketing teams in Europe on a minor drug before the launch of the biggie – its cancer medicine, Marimastat.That could eventually be worth $1bn and analysts reckon 75 per cent of British Bio’s valuation rests on this product alone. True, Celltech is racing to get its sepsis drug to market first, but this has yet to be filed for approval, whereas Zacutex has already been submitted to the European authorities.With no other treatments for pancreatitis around, the drug could be fast- tracked for approval by the year-end.

Given the encouraging clinical data on the treatment, the group could be the first UK biotech to get a new drug on the market, something that would undoubtedly help sentiment. But the story had already been well-rehearsed and British Bio’s shares fell 4.5p to 243.5p yesterday.Many observers reckon Zacutex will be a small drug in sales terms; some projectpeak world-wide sales as low as pounds 50m against estimates as high as pounds 600m. If borne out, the lower figures would be immaterial in terms of British Biotech’s share price.Even so, Zacutex remains important. Shares in the UK’s largest biotechnology group have underperformed the market by 25 per cent since hitting a 326p high 12 months ago. Small wonder the group has resorted to dressing up old news as new.Yesterday it used the pretext of a presentation given to a US conference on digestion to announce that final-stage clinical trials on its most advanced drug, Zacutex, the acute pancreatitis treatment formerly known as lexipafant, resulted in fewer patients dying and less organ failure. Assuming pre-tax profits come in at around pounds 15m this year, brokers are tentatively looking at a forward p/e of 14 on the pounds 130m-odd launch value. That is no bargain, but the issue should go well in the current market.British Bio hitby no-news-itisNever mind cancer, British Biotech needs to find a cure for no- news-itis.

Robert Stokell, the chief executive who arrived from Laporte in October, is confident the baton can be picked up by other Far Eastern business, but he still has to prove that large parts of SGB’s UK operation are more than just in commodity businesses.He should be given a fair wind in his quest by the housebuilding revival, even if an upturn for general construction might help the scaffolding industry more. A large chunk of the profits growth over the past two years has come from work for the new Hong Kong airport, which came to an end this year. The team is already busy on a pounds 3.7m rationalisation programme for the manufacturing division, which will involve around 200 jobs being cut for an annual saving of around pounds 2m by 1998.However, despite its international spread, SGB remains highly dependent on large and lumpy contracts. That represents a powerful vote of confidence in SGB from its former owner, which must assume another year of profits growth ahead. New investors may, however, choose a more cautious approach.
Certainly SGB looks a decent enough business on the face of it.

Half its pounds 135m UK sales come from the SGB Youngman hire-and-sale operation, which claims market leadership in non-powered building equipment such as scaffolding and access towers.Another 30 per cent of SGB’s domestic turnover is derived from contracting, of which around a quarter is specialist scaffolding for oil refineries, chemical plants and the like. Here the hope is that, given the high barriers to entry, this will provide better and more sustainable margins than the wafer-thin fare usually provided by traditional contracting.SGB also has new management, most of whom appear to have been parachuted in from Laporte by Ken Minton, the chemicals group’s former chief executive who chairs Mowlem and its scaffolding subsidiary. But the group is doing its best to have its cake and eat it: the float should save Mowlem pounds 1.7m a year in interest costs, while its decision to retain 51 per cent of SGB will allow it to continue to consolidate the scaffolding group’s profits. The company, floated in 1993, issued a statement about “possible offers being made”. “The board confirms that one tentative approach has been made, which may or may not lead to an offer for the entire issued share capital.”
Neither Peter Woodall, managing director, nor Barry O’Connell, chairman, would elaborate further.Canadian Pizza – which is to change its name to Paramount Foods before 1 July – has issued three profits warnings since1993.

Time Products will reveal its annual financial results today.Photograph: Ben Schott. Past problems continue to haunt John Mowlem, the construction group, despite its remarkable turnaround under new management over the past 18 months or so. The decision to float SGB, the scaffolding business which forms Mowlem’s most profitable division, says more about the millstone of a pounds 50m Eurobond at an 11.5 per cent interest rate than any grand strategic plan. The collection houses almost 3,000 gem stones, including 1,645 diamonds, 448 emeralds and same number of rubies and sapphires.
The carousel alone is fashioned with more than 3kg of engraved white gold.Manufactured by Blancpain, the long-established watchmaker, the aim is to combine advanced movement components with extravagant craftsmanship.Sadly the watches have one other drawback apart from the price: they all need to be wound by hand.